Mark Evans

Sunday A.M. Blogs Bytes: Northern Voice, Bulte, Qumana Beta

If I had the time and the money, I'd be making plans to check out the Northern Voice conference in Vancouver next month. Some of the speakers include Tim Bray, Technorati CEO Dave Sifry, blog wunderkind (Ping-o-matic, Wordpress) Matt Mullenweg and Robert Scoble, whose book “Naked Conversations” has just come out. Northern Voice is the blogging conference in Canada, where the blogosophere is just beginning to gain momentum. Antonia Zerbisias had a feature  in yesterday's Toronto Star looking at how the blogosphere has had much of an impact on the Canadian election - a view that doesn't take into account the fact people, including politicians, read blogs to get a different sense of what's going on.

For people following the controversy involved Liberal MP Sam Bulte and her too-close-for-comfort relationship with the music, movie, software and publishing industries, tomorrow's election will be fascinating to see if the blogosphere played any role in her re-election campaign. A column I wrote last week in the National Post about Bulte and the growing influence of the blogosphere prompted Catherine Allman to write a letter to the editor suggesting that while blogs are interesting, they don't have the reach, credibility an influence and audience diversity yet. Although I've obviously biased, I would refute her view because it doesn't take into account the fact people are reading blogs and exchanging ideas even if these conversations aren't mainstream yet or being covered by the mainstream media. In the name of transparency, Allman's firm, Hawkestone Communications, has worked for the Canadian Recording Industry Association - a big supporter of Sam Bulte.

This post is being written using the latest beta of Qumana. There are obviously a few little bugs that still need to be worked out but it's a big improvement, particularly for people who publishing multiple blogs. The interface is cleaner and some of the cool features such as being able to edit posts within Qumana are more accessible. If you're interested in trying out other blog platform, Larry Borsato has just released Bleezer - a no-frills editor.